AN ACTION plan has been drawn up to help traders in Coventry city centre beat the recesssion.

It follows the launch of the Coventry Telegraph’s Save Our Shops campaign at the end of last year.

Proposals include enlisting the help of business students at both local universities, a ‘Swap Shop’ for independent traders and mentoring schemes to provide crucial support to struggling retailers.

The ideas were discussed during the first City Centre Taskforce meeting - which was organised after the Telegraph issued an SOS call when gloomy figures showed the region has one of the highest levels of empty shops in the country.

Local leaders and retail bosses, including manager of the city’s West Orchards Shopping Centre Andy Talbot, joined forces to put together a package of support to help combat stagnating sales and rising costs.

Coun Lynnette Kelly, cabinet member for city development - who chaired the meeting, said: “There were a lot of positives to come from the meeting and a lot of very good ideas.

“We held a walkabout through the city centre, which was very interesting because each of us know certain areas that we visit all the time, but there are other parts that we never get to see. It was very useful for everyone in the taskforce to see all of the shops, talk about the buildings, how they look and what we can do better for the whole of Coventry’s city centre.”

Ideas include liaising with both Coventry and Warwick University to enlist the help of business students. One proposal was to make the retail ‘dilemma’ part of their course work - with the aim of breathing life back into the city centre.

A second idea is to offer business students a temporary shop - for a short period of time - where they can experience the world of business and start-up their first venture.

Other long-term proposals include either seasonal or themed free parking in the city centre - after the Christmas offering ‘free after three’ proved successful for local traders.

Despite the 2012 footfall for Coventry city centre being three per cent - which is in line with the national average - many traders say they experienced positive Christmas sales.

Mr Talbot said: “West Orchards’ footfall was two per cent up in December, but that was only due to the last two weeks of the year. Year-on-year, footfall was -2.5 per cent.

“But despite the low footfall for 2012, many of our bigger players, for example Debenhams, enjoyed really strong trade at Christmas. We have found that nine out of ten of our stores did better in December last year than in 2011. That could have been helped by the free parking.”

Other ideas included staging various crowd-pulling events in the city, identifying ways to make the shop frontages look more attractive and decorating empty shop windows.

Another idea was to open a ‘Swap Shop’ for traders, which would see bigger stores - such as Debenhams and M&S - being asked to donate unwanted window decorations which could be recycled by independent traders.

Coun Kelly added: “These ideas are really great and it is fantastic to see what can be achieved when we all get together to address the issues.

“However, I don’t think the situation is as bad as many people think. There are a number of new businesses in Coventry city centre which are making huge investments. We know this is not enough and more needs to be done.

“But the issue is not just about filling empty, it is about creating a vibrant and attractive city centre where people want to come and spend their money.